The Weekly Download

“Last week, I posted a piece about Hollywood studios' efforts to partner with online content creators to promote their TV and film projects during SAG-AFTRA’s strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). Since then, there’s been a flurry of conversation about the role of online influencers in this moment. While there have been many encouraging stories about creators turning down lucrative partnership opportunities with studios in order to stand in solidarity with the striking workers, some influencers have expressed confusion about why they should support the strike when they aren’t members of the union.” 

“When Disney CEO Bob Iger said in mid-July that writers and actors were “just not realistic” in what they hoped to achieve through their respective negotiations with Hollywood’s major studios, he practically teed himself up for a public roasting. He received it. ‘We’ve got a message for Mr. Iger: I know, sir, that you look at things through a different lens. We don’t expect you to understand who we are,’ Breaking Bad actor Bryan Cranston said at a SAG-AFTRA rally in New York days after Iger’s comments. ‘But we ask you to hear us,’ Cranston said. ‘We will not be having our jobs taken away and given to robots. We will not have you take away our right to work and earn a decent living. And lastly, and most importantly, we will not allow you to take away our dignity.’ By personalizing the message, writers and actors are trying to galvanize public sentiment — putting a human face on massive corporate riches.”

“July was one of the busiest months for strikes in three decades, reflecting growing public support for unions and increased worker leverage in an era of low unemployment, as tens of thousands of workers have pushed employers for higher wages to keep up with high inflation. The labor unrest erupting in Hollywood, where 170,000 actors have joined 11,500 screenwriters on picket lines, is far from the only example of workers banding together to demand more from their employers this summer. Baristas, national park bus drivers, hotel housekeepers, lawyers, book sellers, locomotive plant workers, sour cream producers and brewery workers also went on strike in July.”

“Striking hotel workers say that their hotel is using Black workers to break strikes, but does not keep them on permanently. An app called ‘Instawork’ is perpetuating this issue.”

“Registered nurses at SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital (SLUH) held an informational picket July 19 to demand that management address the staffing crisis at the facility and its impact on patient safety.”

“Members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) at Frontier Communications in West Virginia and Ashburn, Virginia voted to grant strike authorization to union leaders on Friday. The CWA began contract negotiations with Frontier Communications last month. The union represents about 1,400 Frontier employees. Its current contract is set to expire on Aug. 5. Union leaders now have the authority to call a strike if negotiations between CWA and the telecom company fail to reach a settlement.”

“A sea of royal blue shirts filled the floor before the Miami-Dade County Commission on July 18. They belonged to dozens of outdoor workers with WeCount!’s ¡Que Calor! campaign demanding ‘agua, sombra, y descanso’—water, shade, and rest. Miami commissioners held in their agenda legislation proposing what would be the nation’s first county-wide heat standard for outdoor workers. ‘The demand of ¡Que Calor! is a step in the right direction for bringing dignity and respect for outdoor workers,’ said Pedro Marcos Raymundo, one of the leaders of ¡Que Calor!. ‘But it’s not only about outdoor workers; it’s a step in the right direction for any and all workers.’ Raymundo is one of more than 200 workers organizing with WeCount!, a coalition of immigrant workers and families advocating for better labor conditions in South Florida. ¡Que Calor unites workers across the outdoor industries to create solutions to the problems they are facing in the workplace. The heat standard laid out in 14A1 is one such solution.”

“On Thursday, July 20, workers at Grindr, the popular and long-running LGBTQ dating app, announced that they were unionizing with the Communications Workers of America (CWA). A supermajority of Grindr workers has signed union cards, and they are asking the company to voluntarily recognize the new union, Grindr United.”

“Across the nation, hundreds of workers at the Neighborhood Defender Service and their allies mobilized last week in support of a new collective bargaining agreement. The 200 workers are attorneys, social workers, paralegals, investigators, clerical staff, are represented by the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (ALAA) – UAW Local 2325, which first won union representation at NDS in 2019. The Union’s contract campaign, titled, ‘Fulfill the Promise of Public Defense’ has won the support of workers and communities as negotiations intensify. On July 25 in Detroit, workers rallied outside the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, chanting, ‘When NDS clients are under attack, what do we do? Stand up! Fight Back!’. Community members, autoworkers, and others joined in to spread the message before the bargaining committee headed into a negotiation session with management.”

“Peet’s Coffee now has three new union shops after workers voted to unionize Wednesday, hoping to increase wages and benefits and combat unsafe working conditions. Workers celebrated two unanimous decisions in favor of a union at Berkeley’s Southside store and in Temescal. At the Piedmont Avenue store, the union won by one vote in an 8-7 election.”

“In the fall of 2020, a group of workers at a recycling company called United Scrap Metal were trying to form a union at their Philadelphia plant. The company hired a “union avoidance” firm called Chessboard Consulting in hopes of defeating the organizing campaign. The firm sent a bilingual consultant named Mike Rosado to give the workers, who were mostly immigrants, second thoughts about a union. United Scrap provided Rosado with detailed spreadsheets listing each worker’s name and address, as well as their fluency levels in both Spanish and English, according to documents obtained from the National Labor Relations Board.” 

“More Perfect Union went to Lordstown, Ohio, to see what the electric vehicle revolution actually looks like for the workers making it possible. Lordstown is home to one of Ultium Cells’ three battery manufacturing plants — and the town is no stranger to auto manufacturing. The first GM car rolled off the Lordstown Assembly line in 1966. For the next 6 decades, GM was the town’s largest industrial employer and a crucial source of well-paying, union jobs.” 

“Trader Joe’s United, which formed last year and represents some of the grocery chain’s employees in three states, faces trademark claims over merchandise graphically bearing the company’s trademarks that go beyond identifying the union. The grocer’s complaint, filed in California federal court earlier this month, says the ‘purely commercial’ sales ‘to the public is irreparably harming.’ The union called the lawsuit ‘retaliation’ and ‘simply one more act of union-busting.’”

“A coalition of gig economy giants plan to reboot a failed ballot initiative in Massachusetts in a renewed push to cement their workers’ status as independent contractors. The Massachusetts Coalition for Independent Work, a group bankrolled by Uber Technologies Inc., Lyft Inc., Instacart Inc. and DoorDash Inc., will file a petition to include a measure concerning gig worker classification on the 2024 ballot, according to people familiar with the matter.”

“The BMWED has sued BNSF Railway in federal court to combat the carrier’s bad faith in dealing with the Union by its depletion of its Maintenance of Way workforce and its blatant disregard of contractual obligations intended to protect our members and their work.”

“Following The Trevor Project’s decision to lay off nearly 12% of bargaining unit employees, Trevor Project workers and members of CWA Local 1180 (Friends of Trevor United) are taking action to call out the organization for its increasingly aggressive anti-worker behavior. Just last week, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) filed an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charge on behalf of the workers with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in response to management’s unlawful threats and coercive attempts to silence workers.”

“TCGPlayer employees have filed an unfair labor complaint against parent company eBay, The Verge reports. The company, which sells and authenticates trading cards was acquired by eBay in 2022. The complaint accuses eBay of ignoring the union’s existence after workers organized in March. The workers at TCGPlayer were represented by Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 1123 and became ‘the first group of eBay workers to win union representation in the U.S.,’ a CWA news release said at the time…However, since TCGPlayer employees unionized, both the company and eBay have stalled workers from negotiating a fair contract and refused to acknowledge the union.”

“By now it is well known that unions are a key institution enforcing more equal outcomes by income class in the U.S. economy and that the policy-driven shrinkage of unionization has played a key role in the rise of income inequality in recent decades. However, unions also significantly reduce economic disparities between Black and white workers. Specifically, unions reduce racial wage gaps and racial wealth gaps are smaller among union members. This is largely the result of the union pay premium and the enhanced job protections enjoyed by workers covered by a union contract. The union advantage benefits all workers and has an equalizing effect on Black-white wages.”

“A dispute between the Teamsters and a company that provides multiple logistics services — which have faced off previously before the National Labor Relations Board — is being looked at by labor attorneys as a key battleground in the fight over independent contractor status and unionization. On July 20, William Cowen, a regional director at [NLRB], ruled that STG Logistics workers at two California facilities are employees, not independent contractors, as the company has held.”

“United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain said on Tuesday the union was seeking ambitious benefit increases in contract talks with the Detroit Three automakers, including double-digit pay rises and defined-benefit pensions for all workers. The UAW presented its economic demands to Chrysler-parent Stellantis (STLAM.MI) on Tuesday and will make presentations to General Motors (GM) (GM.N) Wednesday and Ford (F.N) Thursday ahead of the Sept. 14 expiration of the current four-year contracts, Fain said.”

“When the Writers Guild of America told its members on Tuesday night that movie and television studios had asked for “a meeting this Friday to discuss negotiations,” it was the first sign of movement in a stalemate that had begun in early May. It also signaled a shift in strategy for Hollywood executives working behind the scenes to resolve dual union strikes that have ground the vast entertainment industry to a halt. The 11,500 screenwriters represented by the Writers Guild went on strike in May after contract negotiations with the studios broke down. Last month, they were joined on the picket lines by tens of thousands of actors after their union, SAG-AFTRA, called a strike. Both unions are worried about not receiving a fair share of the spoils of a streaming-dominated future, among other issues.”

“UPS and the Teamsters have reached a tentative deal on a contract that would affect 340,000 UPS workers, narrowly avoiding a strike that would have severely hampered package delivery service in the country. Contract adoption is contingent on rank-and-file members voting in favor of the agreement this month. The proposed five-year contract raises wages for full-time and part-time unionized UPS workers by $2.75 this year, amounting to a $7.50 hourly increase throughout the contract. It sets the minimum wage for part-time workers at $21 per hour and ends a two-tier wage system that created a class of new drivers known as ‘22.4s’ who earned significantly less than senior drivers. The agreement would also give all workers Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a holiday and end forced overtime on drivers’ days off.”

“The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen and BNSF Railway have reached a systemwide agreement on paid sick leave and schedule improvements. The tentative agreement, announced today, includes up to eight paid sick leave days and grants access to scheduled time off in an effort to improve work-life balance for BNSF locomotive engineers. BNSF and the BLET called the tentative agreement a “breakthrough” that came after several months of negotiations. If ratified, ‘it is expected to bring positive changes to both the professional and personal lives of locomotive engineers,’ the railroad and union said.”

“After hundreds of workplace actions and countless displays of solidarity big and small by AFSCME Council 31 members all across state government, the AFSCME Bargaining Committee – comprised of 220 union members elected by their co-workers – and the State of Illinois reached a tentative agreement July 1 and members ratified it by the end of the month. The new contract covers more than 30,000 state workers.”

“We need a new institution that does a single task: New organizing. An institution staffed by organizers whose single job is to help non-union workers unionize their workplaces. A new organizing center that only does new organizing. When the workers have won their unions, they can be placed into existing unions that can do the contracts and grievances and enforcement and all of the other normal union stuff. But new organizing—the job on which the future of the entire labor movement depends — is too important to be relegated to an afterthought within unions that are focused on catering to current members. We need to build something new that does not have any mixed incentives. Its success can be judged entirely on the number of people it unionizes.”

“A little over a year ago, when the Amazon Labor Union won its historic union election on Staten Island, I asked, with a healthy degree of skepticism, if this time really is different. If the long, slow, rearguard action of a declining American Labor Movement was maybe, just maybe, coming to an end. If there was a real resurgence, a real chance for the labor movement to blossom anew. In that year, we’ve seen Starbucks workers organize across the country. We’ve seen union election wins with “dictators holding sham election”-type numbers. We’ve seen the White House and the National Labor Relations Board support workers like they never have in my lifetime or probably yours. It’s been exciting and deeply satisfying…And now for the first time in my 27 years in the labor movement, so help me, I think I’m an optimist.”